It's Time To Light The Lights . . .

My wife, the lovely Angela, is playing Elsa in our town's Light Opera production of The Sound of Music. Tonight is opening night, but via the magic of one of our friend's (who is also in the play) camera phone, I can provide you with an exclusive behind the scenes preview. Not only do the songs sound great, but Angie looks great in her costumes! Please join me in wishing her well.

Did I mention she looks great?

Go, Angie!

O-Files Q&A

I know, dear reader, that I promised a few weeks ago to update you on a couple of trips from May, but between now and then I have learned something that has troubled me greatly, and I feel must be addressed.

There are in this world people who ask their computers questions.

I can only surmise that these are folks who have just recently been introduced to the magic box of witchery that we know as the PC, and that their only previous knowledge of similar equipment was gleaned from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek TOS, and a few junior-high era sessions with a Magic 8 ball. While most of these people are probably still sitting sullenly before the monitor waiting for a verbal response ("computing . . . computing"), some have discovered that handy interface device, the keyboard. In fact, it is due to the activities of this latter group (along that queer tool of divination, the stat-counter) that I first became aware of this phenomenon.

The folks at Ask.com do nothing to help matters. This particular search engine has apparently taken the "if you can't beat them, humor them" approach. At their site, a person may type a question into the query field, and Ask.com brings them back a list of websites which may (or, as seems to be more often the case, may not) answer their question. What Ask.com does, I believe is filter out query words like "how" "when" as well as conjunctions, and then run a typical websearch on the key words.

I hope I have neither shattered any dearly held illusions lonely folk had about their computer talking to them, nor divulged any proprietary corporate information in that last paragraph.

Before we get too deep into the sarcasm, I think that this would be an appropriate time for me to confess that I once typed the following commands into a VIC-20 (one of the first ever home computers).

10 BREAK INTO THE FBI COMPUTERS IN WASHINGTON DC
20 END

I think that reveals sufficient ignorance and naivete to qualify me to engage in the heckling above. For the record, I had not just seen War Games, I had only seen the commercial for it.

The main point I really mean to make is this: we have all had moments where, regardless of how many search parameters we try, we just cannot find the information we want on the internet. And to those of you who have, in the past, experienced similar frustration by coming to my site expecting answers and finding none, I say, "This is YOUR post". I have, over the past couple of months, saved a few questions that I thought might be of broader interest, and will answer them now.

Q: What do Smallmouth Salmanders eat?

A: Smallmouth Salamanders are a widespread member of the Ambystomatid family (which also includes the Tiger Salamander and the Blue-spotted Salamander, among others) of salamanders that inhabits the east-central and south-central portion of the U.S. Unlike other salamanders that seem to need pristine wild areas in order to survive, the Smallmouth persists in agricultural and suburban type habitats. Due to the fact that it spends most of the year underground, this salamander often goes unnoticed by people who live near them and may actually have one or two residing in their yards.

There are at least two sizeable populations of this species within 20 minutes of my house, and my kids are actually keeping one in the basement. We feed it nightcrawlers slightly shorter in length than the salamander itself. I have observed one foraging in the wild, and it too was eating a nightcrawler. They will, however, also eat several other invertebrates that inhabit the same subterranean or forest floor litter haunts.

Q: Does a Eastern Painted Turtle male [get] involved in caring for the young?

A: The answer, sadly, is no. It is pretty tough to find a deader-beat dad than the male painted turtle, who contributes little else to the family unit than a few microscopic cells after a breif courtship with the female. He then goes on his way, looking for another young Chrysemystid heart to break.

While this may inspire outrage in you, save some spite for the mother, who, after carrying the developing eggs and digging a nest, deposits them and leaves the site, perhaps never to see her young again.

Actually, most reptiles and amphibians do not brood their eggs, and none give any parental care (a notable exception to this would be female crocidilians). Some species of snake have, in fact, been known to eat younger members of their kind. It is not at all unlikely that some have consumed their own offspring.

Fortunately for them, baby snakes, turtles, and frogs are born/hatched with all the instinct they need to make their way in this big, uncaring world.

Q: When do painted turtles hatch in Ohio?

A: Painted Turtles nest in late spring and early summer, so the eggs usually hatch in late summer or early fall. Some, however, hatch so late that they simply overwinter in the nest.

That is all for this session of O-files Q&A. I hope you found it to be as helpful and interesting as I intended, and fun rather than offensive.

One final warning, though. I will not answer the question, "Computer, will I ever find love?" No matter how many times you ask.